cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 38

Gonna go ahead and make this post even though Yuletide is coming...

But in the meantime, there has been some fic in the fandom posted!

Holding His Space (2503 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Characters: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Additional Tags: Protectiveness, Domestic, Character Study
Summary:

Five times Fredersdorf has to stay behind - and one time Friedrich doesn't leave.

Using People (3392 words) by prinzsorgenfrei
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Hans Hermann von Katte
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Hans Hermann von Katte
Additional Tags: Fluff, Idiots in Love, reading plays aloud while gazing into each others eyes
Summary:

Friedrich had started to talk to him because he had thought of him as a bit of a ditz.
And now here he was. Here he was months later, bundled up in this very same man’s blankets with a cup of hot coffee in front of him, its scent mixing with that of Katte’s French perfume.
_
Fluffy One Shot about one traitorous Crown Prince and the sycophant he accidentally fell for.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Tempting, at least, to shout ‘Here’s a fine mess
your sociopath dad has got me into’, or 'The tyrant demands blood!' or words to that effect,

Fixed that for you,

mildred_of_midgard!

THAT'S AWESOME, Cahn, you totally did!

luzula: There's a semi-reliable oral tradition according to which Katte's remark when being carted off to his execution was that "The tyrant demands blood." This remark is quoted by NO HISTORIAN OR FICTION AUTHOR EVER, all of whom prefer to call attention to his "It's not FW's fault either!" remarks, if not outright putting words like "Lang lebe der König!" into his mouth.

(The reason we think it's reliable is that it's from the 1790s, when criticizing FW this openly in print was not the done thing in Berlin, and we know the links in the oral tradition chain. A French or English author saying this would be propaganda. A Berlin author (Nicolai) saying his source (Hertefeld, Jr.) had it from his father (Hertefeld, Sr.), to whom Katte allegedly uttered this line...we're inclined to believe it.)

ETA: pretty much everyone (at the time) knew where to put the blame?

No, sadly, even if you blamed FW, contemporaries still gave Fritz a hard time for his hare-brained schemes. E.g. Wilhelmine, whose memoirs I was looking at today for...you guessed it, Peter Keith citations. She says, "The situation of my brother was so deporable that I could not disapprove of his resolution, and yet I foresaw its terrible consequences. His plan was so badly contrived, and the individuals acquainted with it were so giddy, and so little calculated to conduct an affair of that importance, that it could not possibly succeed."

Keith: Speak for yourself. *I* succeeded.

Katte: Good manners and style, or lack of victim-blaming or something, prevents me from calling Your Royal Highness ungrateful, when I stayed behind to help destroy the evidence incriminating you.

Edited Date: 2022-11-15 05:39 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

Re: Hertefeld Sr., it’s worth adding for Luzula that he really was in the same regiment as Katte, that Katte was originally (after his arrest) kept prisoner there (i.e. with the regiment) until he got tranferred, that Hertefeld Sr in the account he gave his son - who gave it to Nicolai - correctly named the times of arrest and transfer, all of which heightens his credibility as someone to whom Katte might have made this “the tyrant wants blood” remark in reply to Hertefeld Sr.
attempt at comforting him by hoping for a non-lethal sentence. It’s worth adding that the belief Katte would NOT be condemned to death ahead of actual the sentence actually does not seem to have been just limited to Fritz and Hertefeld. Brunswick envoy Stratemann, who is a very FW friendly source, in his late summer, early autumn reports is convinced that the King will not only pardon Katte but is also surely going to pardon his son and to bring him back to Berlin very soon, etc. He’s so convinced of FW’s goodness that when he hears about some back and forth between FW and the war tribunal, what he thinks happens is that the tribunal wants the death penalty for Katte, and FW wants to pardon him.

Now, Katte was demonstrably guilty of having conspired with planning to desert Fritz and planning to desert himself, but he hadn’t deserted yet, and also he was really well connected (old nobility, rich Dad and Granddad, both in high esteem with FW, so it’s without the benefit of hindsight understandable a lot of people thought he would get punished, but NOT with the death penalty. Otoh, if Katte did say in reply to Hertefeld’s assumption “no, the tryrant demands blood”, it would mean he himself had no such illusion.

(Meanwhile, no one doubted Peter Keith would get killed if ever FW got his hands on him, but then Peter did successfully desert, AND he didn’t have all these seemingly useful connections.)

Wilhelmine: was writing in hindsight, hindsight including the fact FW blamed her anyway even without proof and had her put under three quarters of a year house (well, chambers) arrest, and that it could have been even worse for her if Fritz actually HAD managed to escape, resulting in the repressed resentment we were speculating about. Also she dislikes all her brother’s boyfriends except Voltaire on general principle. :)

Incidentally, when it comes to escape plans, success of lack of same, while I can come up with SOME princes who managed successful escapes (Charles II and BPC, and Grandpa F1 as a prince when thinking his Dad the Great Elector and Stepmom hat it in for him), these guys did not escape FW, and did not escape from comparably supervised situations. Meanwhile, people successfully escaping FW whom he did not want to let go are far and few. Fassmann (who wanted to replace Gundling and when he did found the situation very much not to his liking) did manage it, but FW didn’t have the weirdly intense abusive relationship with Fassman he had with Gundling, let alone anything like the one he had with his son, and also Fassmann wasn’t observed 24/7.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Otoh, if Katte did say in reply to Hertefeld’s assumption “no, the tryrant demands blood”, it would mean he himself had no such illusion.

Yeah, by the time he was getting carted away to Kustrin (Nov 3), he had already written a letter asking for a pardon (Nov 2) and presumably been refused, and he must have known FW had overridden the tribunal, and I believe Major Schack told Katte he'd refused 3 times to execute Katte before FW threatened him into doing it or else, so...I think Katte knew there was basically no chance at that point. Hence the tyrant.

these guys did not escape FW, and did not escape from comparably supervised situations

Agreed, and sustained childhood trauma does a number on your brain, sometimes in a way that's visible on brain scans. [ETA: which may have a lot to do with why Alexei, who escaped Peter the Great, agreed to go back, and found himself tortured to death.]

Fassmann: That reminds me, one of the sources for how old pages were during FW's reign is Fassmann's "Life and Deeds of FW", which I turned up a copy of. Have you read/browsed that?

Edited Date: 2022-11-16 06:14 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

No, I haven't, though I have seen other works quote from it, as it's one of the earliest FW biographies. Martin Sabrow the Gundling biographer quotes from it for obvious reasons but with great scepticism where appropriate, for example, Sabrow points out that Fassmann's story that Gundling after getting fired post F1's death wasn't just job- but also homeless, headed for a tavern and entertained the guests with his drunken ramblings, which is where Grumbkow found him, literally can't be true because we know where Gundling was living thanks the Berlin address book, that the tavern Fassmann mentions didn't even exist yet, that he most likely was sent on an inspection tour through Brandenburg thanks to his essay about manufacturing and that this is how he originally reccomend himself to Grumbkow and FW. So what Fassmann did was projecting and conflating based on being Gundling's rival and knowing him in his final years, but Förster picked up the story from Fassmann and from there it ended up in all the FW biographies thereafter which touched on how Gundling went from being F1's historian to his position with FW.

This said, and with the caveat Fassmann was a satirist by profession, he really does get quoted by FW biographers, and it would be interesting to read his book not least because it might tell us where various FW related stories have their origin. Also for the comparison with Morgenstern's later FW book.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yeah, I was thinking it might be interesting for telling us where certain stories come from. Here you go! Let me know if you have any issues accessing it.

It's also really long, and given what I can see of the topics, you'll probably do a lot of skimming. But hopefully you'll be able to find us some good bits to share!

(I'm reminded looking at this that what I hate about the evil font is not so much that the letters are different, i.e. the font per se, which I could get used to, as that the quality of the printing is almost always SO BAD.)

Edited Date: 2022-11-16 08:34 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

The quality of printing is indeed horrid. Since I'm also continuing with listening to the History of the Germans podcast, it tickles me that Fassmann (who publishes this in 1735 and at least early in the book lays it on as thickly about FW's wonderfulness as if he was Voltaire in the 1730s writing to Fritz about Fritz' wonderfulness) points out FW was "born in the purple", i.e. when his father F1/still F3 at this point wasn't a mere Kurprinz anymore but a Kurfürst, an Elector, and clearly that shows FW was born to make millions happy by his rule and has something of the divine in him, I kid you not:

As soon as the new Kurprinz Friedrich Wilhelm was born to the world and made his first sounds, one could immediately see he was perfectly formed and made. Indeed his face showed the beauty of his lady mother, his heroic expression the spirit of his grandfather, as well as the majestic nature which always shone from the eyes of his lord father...

...to give you an impression of Fassmann's style.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I noticed the born in the purple and was tickled for the same reason!

...to give you an impression of Fassmann's style.

Oh, good lord! That is some fanboying.

Printing quality: I need to vent about who in 1735 thought it was necessary to print things like this and torture us poor future English speakers.

From:

selenak

Okay, I've now progressed to 1730, though I admittedly skipped a lot of declarations. It's really noticeable that Fassmann didn't join FW's court until the later 1720s. Until that point, there isn't much about FW the person, it's just FW the model reform monarch. And good lord, pages upon pages of descriptions of SD's entrance in Berlin as a bride, or F1's wake and funeral procession. And so many royal declarations! There are some childhood anecdotes, though notably no unflattering ones (no Tiny Terror FW beating up his teacher or his cousin here!), for example the one where young FW swallows his golden shoe clip because he hates waste and splendor that much as a kid already.

The comparison to Morgenstern, writing just a few decades later, is instructive, because Fassmann and Morgenstern knew FW in roughly the same decade, and neither knew him when young, i.e. they're both referring hearsay. But Morgenstern is writing in Fritz' era, and so there's F1 bashing, Tiny Terror FW, SC criticism, and what might just be the earliest mention in a public source (as opposed to private correspondence not accessible to normal contemporaries) of young FW wanting to marry Caroline before he hooks up with SD. By contrast, Fassmann doesn't mention Caroline, SD was the perfect princess and then became the perfect Queen, and she and FW have the perfect marriage. What else!

Then we get into the later 1720s, and suddenly you get detailed stuff that actually feels like an eye wittness account, like this one about FW's 1728/1729 serious illness:

"As his majesty for as long as it took had many sleepless nights, he used to sleep a while in the morning starting at 4 or 6 am. When he awoke and if his great pain permitted it, he threw himself into the business of governing, as he signed, dictated or answered many letters. At noon he rose if possible from bed, put on a dressing gown and had lunch with her Majesty the Queen and some of the children who were at Potsdam. Such as his royal highness the Crown Prince, the current Margravine of Ansbach, and his Royal Highness Prince August Wilhelm. Her Royal Highness the Margravine of Bayreuth was then still in Potsdam, but because she was suffering from chicken pox had to be locked up with Fräulein von Sonsfeld in the later's room all the time.

After lunch His Majesty, pain and weakness permitting, either went back to bed or painted, an art which he had learned in his youth and mastered fairly well. His Majesty created various portraits of farmers from different nations. To this end, there always had to be a painter at hand in the afternoon who mixed the colors and made the first sketch. As his Majesty tried to push back sleep for the entire afternoon until 9 or 10 pm at night so he might have a calmer night thereafter, there needed to be certain people in the room at all times whom he tolerated, no matter whether they were sitting or lying with him in the bed. The Queen' s Majesty came and went, and one could see more than once that His Majesty once the pain had lessened a bit, put his hand into her Majesty's most lovingly, seeking either additional soothing this way or expressing the calmness of his heart. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and the current Margravine of Ansbach went up and down through the room. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince used to either read French books, or listen to the conversation, while her Royal Highness the Margravine of Ansbach either knitted or wove. Most of all Prince August Wilhelm used to be in the room for the entire afternoon, and either wrote or painted, in which art he had already done a few things."

Sidenote: Morgenstern says FW only started to learn how to paint in 1730, not in his youth, and so does Förster; I'm inclined to believe them. But the rest is believable enough.

Absolutely no mention of any father/son problems until we get to the FW and Fritz tour of the summer of 1730. And there Fassmann first gives us the tourist attractions and FW's reaction to each of them as if he's writing a travelogue, which made me wonder whether he's actually going to skip over the entire incident. But no. After talking about FW, Mannheim tourist, he suddenly says, only slightly paraphrased: Oh, and on this journey, something went down between the King and the Crown Prince, which has been talked about so much that I guess I have to include it. Now I don't know what really happened, and nor do you, reader, and since neither of us will ever find out, let's just be joyful that the cloud of this sad disagreement has disappeared and now the King and the Crown Prince are living in perfect harmony again. True, this sad affair has cost this officer of the Regiment Gens d'Armes, one Herr von Katte, his head, and this despite him being the son of ultra respectable FW buddy and officer Hans Herrmann and the grandson of rich and respected Wartensleben. V. sad. But look, these things happen between royals! Future F1 also ran away from his Dad when he was still a Kurprinz! And hey, we can all read in the newspapers that Fritz of Wales hardly ever shows up at court but keeps staying at a place called Richmond. FW and Fritz aren't unusual, is what I'm saying. I hope people in high places won't hold it against me that I mentioned this wretched affair at all, it's just that it's so well known that my readers wouldn't trust me if I didn't mention it. Okay, so FW then went to Wusterhausen and spend the rest of the year there...

By contrast, his report on the bonkers Clement affair actually is pretty matter-of-factly and much as I've found it in other accounts. Fassmann doesn't doubt for a moment Clement was a gifted conman (with untrustworthy black eyes!) (also of small stature and fat! So it can't have been his looks, I guess...) and a lying liar. He doesn't mention that FW had a hard time giving up on Clement, but other than that, his account, as mentioned, is very much on the money. Interestingly, he does mention that in the fallout of the Clement affair SD's lady in waiting, Frau von Baspiel, had to leave the court after a brief Spandau interlude with her husband, but he doesn't include the fact that this was because while Frau von Baspiel had nothing to do with Clement or insane kidnap plans, she did in fact spy for the Saxons (and had been Manteuffel's mistress). Whether this is because Fassmann truly doesn't know or whether he wants to be discreet, I have no idea.

One more trivia fact: if his account of FW breaking the "you're going to get married" news to Friederike Louise is in any way correct, the Hohenzollern called this sister of Fritz' "Louise".

Edited Date: 2022-11-17 05:21 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Until that point, there isn't much about FW the person, it's just FW the model reform monarch. And good lord, pages upon pages of descriptions of SD's entrance in Berlin as a bride, or F1's wake and funeral procession. And so many royal declarations!

This is what I meant when I said given the length (for those who haven't looked, it's over a thousand pages long) and what I could see of the topics, you were going to do a lot of skimming/skipping!

young FW swallows his golden shoe clip because he hates waste and splendor that much as a kid already.

Oh, hahaha, not because he was a toddler throwing a temper tantrum and trying to get his way, which is the explanation I've always seen from less favorable-to-FW sources? :P

And there Fassmann first gives us the tourist attractions and FW's reaction to each of them as if he's writing a travelogue, which made me wonder whether he's actually going to skip over the entire incident.

OMG, we had the same reaction! I went looking for 1730, of course, and I found the trip and it just went on and on, and I also wondered if he was going to talk about the escape attempt at all! And then I found Katte's name, read that sentence, and gave up on the print and decided you could tell me the rest. <3

But look, these things happen between royals!

I mean, he's not wrong! But *some people* used that as an argument to go, "FW, you don't want to be like Philip II and Peter the Great!"

Okay, so FW then went to Wusterhausen and spend the rest of the year there...

Lol, yeah, I think somebody is trying to get a job back or at least keep his options open. (I am reminded of Pollnitz and his desire to keep his options open when talking about various princes in Europe. The Ruspanti? Pensioners of the Grand Duke!)

By contrast, his report on the bonkers Clement affair actually is pretty matter-of-factly and much as I've found it in other accounts.

Ooh, wonderful, this is one of the things I went looking for and didn't have the patience find and hoped you would find and tell us all about!

(with untrustworthy black eyes!) (also of small stature and fat! So it can't have been his looks, I guess...)

Oh, this matches the description you found in Weber a while back: "Here we get a physical description by the arresting officers who bring hin to Spandau - 'the black and brown fat gentleman in an Hungarian furcoat'." I guess he could still have been tall in that description, so good to know that his height was not what recommended him to FW!

So if that description is firsthand, from the people arresting Klement, then that backs up Fassmann's info as pretty solid.

if his account of FW breaking the "you're going to get married" news to Friederike Louise is in any way correct, the Hohenzollern called this sister of Fritz' "Louise".

Always nice as a fanfic writer to know what these people called each other!

Re: Fassmann's life of FW - up to 1730

From:

selenak - Date: 2022-11-18 08:53 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fassmann's life of FW - up to 1730

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-11-18 09:14 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fassmann's life of FW - up to 1730

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-11-19 06:00 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

cahn

Heh, I was surprised FW was said to be painting farmers and not, err, soldiers. I wonder if these were tall farmers?

But look, these things happen between royals!

Awwww, wow.

Now I don't know what really happened, and nor do you, reader, and since neither of us will ever find out,

~~but salon has done its best~~

(also of small stature and fat! So it can't have been his looks, I guess...)

Hee!

Re: Fassmann's life of FW - up to 1730

From:

selenak - Date: 2022-11-19 07:59 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fassmann's life of FW - up to 1730

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-11-22 05:48 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

selenak

With some more skipping of royal declarations, I was able to finish. You also can tell that after 1731, Fassmann is reporting hearsay again, but he's thorough, I'll give him that - he evidently uses the Berlin newspaper which Martin Sabrow also used for his Gundling biography for its various announcements about the royal family and about famous visitors. This is useful when FS visits in time to attend Fritz' engagement party, because Fassmann bothers to write down every single official engagement FS had during the three weeks he spent at the Prussian court, so if anyone ever wants to write Murder At the Wusterhausen Express with FS as Poirot, there's some good material there. Interestingly, when trying to explain why there's so much fuss about the young Duke of Lorraine, Fassmann does NOT mention "most likely future husband of MT, and thus future Emperor", he says it's because FS is related to FW via Lieselotte. (As in, Liselotte was FS' grandmother, and niece to FW's grandmother Sophie of Hannover.) I'm reminded of Stratemann mentioning FS prefered sitting at the kids' table during the festivities, and hey, who wouldn't, with FW and SD as the alternative? But Fassmann doesn't mention it, because he wasn't there, he's going by newspaper reports.

Also, unless I skipped it, which is possible, he doesn't explain why he left FW. (Stratemann, otoh, in his envoy reports explains it completely.) He's ultra discreet about that one. He defends FW's recruitment practices by royal prerogative and that the population owes it to its sovereign like it owes taxes, and no one is better to his soldiers and more careful with their lives than FW. And all other kings also draft and gangpress, without being as careful with their soldiers, so there! And Prussian soldiers learn how to have an excellent character, be clean, be god fearing and obedient, not like those evil whoring soldiers elsewhere.

Fassmann is your source for the royal pages: "There are several royal pages, as far as I recall, there are sixteen of them. These are directed by their Hofmeister and live all together at the royal palace. They are taught in all necessessary sciences, have a red uniform, and show up two times a day, always paired up, at the royal palace for their service, where they are directed towards their stations. These are all youngsters between 12 and 16 years of age. Additionally, his Royal Majesty has those pages who are always serving him and are always with him. These are somewhat stronger and more grown up than the other pages, approximately between 18 and 20 years of age, and if they behave well, they get promoted to Lieutenants thereafter."

He's also the source for the pages and the royal kids getting plenty of food. Not the exotic expensive stuff like when F1 was king, but good, season appropriate food, with lots of meat and meat soups for the royal kids! So there, doubters.

FW, model husband, faithful alone among kings, also would never allow rude speech in front of his darling wife, best and most loving of queens. Now it's not like Fassmann doesn't include stories which are less than complimentary to FW, but not in a knowing way, I don't think. For example, like Morgenstern he has the bit where FW makes the Jews of Berlin buy the boars he's hunted, ha ha ha. (Ugh, FW. And Ugh, Fassmann.) Also, FW so can be merciful! Why, there was this husband who killed his slut of a wife, and he'd have gotten the death penalty for that, but when FW heard what a slut the wife was, he pardoned the guy!

Then there's this: In the year 1728, there were six young bears at Wusterhausen. These walked around on their hind feet, and in order to make them adjust better to this, their forefeet were bound together on their backs. Moreover, all their teeth had been knocked out in order to prevent any accidents. Now, when I had been called (to Wusterhausen) in the autumn of that year, I had no idea about these animals (....) But when one evening I was in the room where his Royal Majesty used to hold court and was one of the last to leave, I suddenly was surrounded by all these little black men when I crossed the courtyard in order to get to my quarters. This confused me at first, and I didn't know what to think until I realised these weren't little devils but young bears.

Two thoughts:

a) These aren't necessarily the same bears Gundling had to cope with, since the Gundling incident happened a decade earlier, I think, but I bet those bears were treated the same way. (Which would explain how Gundling survived being locked in a room with young bears and firecrackers to frighten them.)

b) Poor bears. Teeth knocked out, forelegs tied to the back? Ugh.

When Fassmann, near the end, lists all the members of the royal family, you can tell he likes Charlotte and Friederike Louise best of all the girls, because they get more than a page each, where Wilhelmine gets just a few lines saying she's a very virtuous and god fearing (!) model of a wife now. Fritz, future King, is now a wonderful person and all the world has only good things to expect from his reign. Heinrich he hasn't seen since Heinrich was five, but he thinks this is a smart kid who would make a good future Dompropst and theologian.

FW, model father:
His Majesty could enjoy himself thoroughly when taking the young prince (AW) by his hand at Wusterhausen or in Potsdam or in their rooms and debated with him. In the evening, when the princes had to be brought to bed, he first came to his Majesty in order to wish him a good night, kissed the King's hand and said: "Good night, dearest Papa!" Then the King's Majesty kept holding his hands a good while longer, asked various questions, lifted him upwards and kissed him. But when his Royal Highness Prince Heinrich had grown a bit (from being a baby), His Royal Highness August Wilhelm had to share the post of a royal Mignon with the later. Both royal brothers got drilled as soldiers sometimes in his Royal Majesty's evenings societies by an officer in 1731, and both proved themselves able to do these exercises which of course they loved doing. They showed themselves very spirited for as long as they were allowed to remain in the evening get together, which usually lasted until they were called to the table by the King's Majesty. Now when his Royal Highness Prince Friedrich Heinrich was five years old, it happened that during his spirited and energetic jumping around his sword got between his legs, so the little boy fell down. This frightened his Royal Majesty, so he pretended to be angry and demanded the sword back from the Prince, had it taken away from him while pretending the Prince was now under arrest. Oh, that resulted in the boy crying and lamenting! The Prince kissed the King's hand and asked to be pardoned, and said: "Oh, dearest Papa! I will not do it again!" But that didn't help, the Prince had to go, and go the most Serene Lady Mother (which was his arrest), and did not get the sword returned to him until Her Majesty the Queen pretended to have asked for him to be pardoned.

Okay. Bear in mind: this is 1731. Fritz is still in Küstrin. I don't know how much Heinrich at age 5 comprehended from all that had been going on, but since he was a bright kid, the basic "Oldest Brother got arrested" principle might have sunk down. And FW pretends to have him put under arrest, and makes him go through asking for a pardon, like Big Brother had done for real that same year? L'autre moi-meme indeed.

There's also a lot about FW's good deeds for the Salzburg Protestants (giving them a new home), founding the famous Charité hospital, founding orphan houses and schools etc., all of which he did do, but good lord, this is in general a white washing/spin-meister job of the first order. I suspect Fassmann after a few years in the wilderness was short of cash and toyed with the idea of going back in the hope of getting rehired?

ETA: Lastly: Fassmann early on mentions FW being fluent in French from childhood onwards (true) and later insisting on only talking German to his children (also true and often testified) in order to make them love the language.

Now remember which language FW's children used near exclusively when grown up, and also (most of) their religious commitment in adulthood.

Fontane, when commenting on Heinrich's pretending to have forgotten his German in his old age: "One is tempted to call this the logical consequence of a childhood where German was rammed down one's throat."

Edited Date: 2022-11-17 04:09 pm (UTC)

Re: Fassmann's life of FW - the end

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-11-17 11:35 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fassmann's life of FW - the end

From:

selenak - Date: 2022-11-18 09:14 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fassmann's life of FW - the end

From:

cahn - Date: 2022-11-19 06:07 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fassmann's life of FW - the end

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-11-19 08:21 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

luzula

OMG, that is terrible. *sympathy* Luckily I have never had a problem with English-language scanned printed material from the 18th century being hard to read.

Re: Fassmann's life of FW

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-11-17 11:10 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: Fassmann's life of FW

From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2022-11-18 08:34 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

cahn

...I don't think I could read that if it were in English and regular lettering! !I can make out a "Leben und" and a "Augusti An" (maybe?) and that's it. Some of that just looks like chunks of black!

Re: Fassmann's life of FW

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2022-11-19 01:46 pm (UTC) - Expand

From:

cahn

Woooow. That is sure something!

From:

cahn

[ETA: which may have a lot to do with why Alexei, who escaped Peter the Great, agreed to go back, and found himself tortured to death.]

Waaaait, I didn't know that! (I mean I knew about him getting killed, but not that he escaped in the first place... I guess it's time for me to get back to the Peter book, now that I think I can handle it again.)

From:

selenak

Oh, he escaped, alright, and hung out in Austria with MT's Dad for a while. This was kind of awkward for non political reasons as well as political ones because their connection was through Alexei's late unwanted wife, who had been MT's aunt, and whom Alexei had treated as badly as Peter had treated Alexei's mother. (Meanwhile, Peter got on very well with his daughter-in-law, who was the first of many, many German princesses to marry a Romanov. Seriously, this match started the tradition of the Romanovs (minus Peter the Great himself, whose second wife was his low born mistress) getting married German princesses right until the last Czar who married Alix of Hesse-Kassel.

Anyway, MT's Dad did feel very sorry for Alexei regardless, and there's a letter from him to G1 which shows he suspected Peter of having bad plans for his son, but having him in Austria was also politically tricky, so he sent Alexei to Naples. Where eventually Alexei was persuaded to come back to Russia on the promise he wouldn't be punished and would be allowed to live out his life on his estates and marry Afrosina, his mistress. (Remember, at this point, Peter the Great's sons from his second marriage were still alive, so it wasn't like there weren't any alternative successors around.) Alexei made literally the mistake of his life and did return. Tragedy ensues which is the main reason why no one can call FW the worst royal Dad of the 18th century.

From:

cahn

Oh nooooo. I would say therapy for everyone, but also um NOT KILLING YOUR KID seems like a good move here too... but yes, I should also read Massie :)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Given that it was in the very earliest days of salon that Selena summarized this episode for us, I can see why you'd forgotten! Here is the link, though you should also read Massie!

Looking through that thread, I see another case where we knew a whole lot less then than we do now:

in all fairness, he did accept the Pragmatic Sanction when Maria Theresia's Dad asked him to. (And likely would not have broken his word afterwards. Not because he would have considered MT or any woman able to rule but because word of honor, etc.)

Having now read a whole bunch of 1720s and some 1730s foreign policy, I still agree FW wouldn't have kicked off the war himself, but I also doubt he would have felt bound by the Pragmatic Sanction.

1. FW's foreign policy in the 1720s was all over the place, and he was defecting on treaties and double-dealing whenever he felt like it.

2. He was furious all through the 1730s at the Emperor for not keeping *his* end of the bargain, which was to support FW's claims to Jülich & Berg. (There stands one who will avenge me, etc.) In fact, the treaty in which FW agreed to support the Pragmatic Sanction was the Treaty of Wusterhausen of 1726, in which FW gave that promise in return for said claims, and the treaty was null and void if Charles VI hadn't done something about those claims within 6 months.

I believe Fritz used this violated-already-by-the-Emperor treaty as an excuse in 1740. And unless there was a later treaty in which the Pragmatic Sanction was re-agreed to without such provisions (which may have been the case, especially in the War of the Polish Succession), I'm not sure Prussia *was* bound by treaty to respect the Pragmatic Sanction. (Which is different from
a legal or ethical right to invade with those very sketchy claims to Silesia.)

My opinion on what FW does in this scenario is that he *might* remain neutral or side with MT, but there's a very real chance he helps out the Wittelsbach guy (his emperor, after all!) in return for Jülich and Berg. He did join the Great Northern War on the grounds that Prussia had some (very shaky) claims to Swedish Pomerania, so he seems fine joining other people's wars of aggression to assert his own claims.

Edited Date: 2022-11-19 08:18 am (UTC)

From:

cahn

Re: Hertefeld Sr., it’s worth adding for Luzula

And for me, thank you :)

Wilhelmine: was writing in hindsight, hindsight including the fact FW blamed her anyway even without proof and had her put under three quarters of a year house (well, chambers) arrest, and that it could have been even worse for her if Fritz actually HAD managed to escape, resulting in the repressed resentment we were speculating about. Also she dislikes all her brother’s boyfriends except Voltaire on general principle. :)

Not gonna lie, your last sentence (except I'd temporarily forgotten about Voltaire) was also my response to

mildred_of_midgard's objection about Wilhelmine :D

But also, I think it can sometimes be hard for someone who's gone through abuse to acknowledge that someone else in the same situation with the same abuser is, well, also getting abused, especially when the first person doesn't acknowledge it to herself. One of the heartbreaking things about Wilhelmine's memoirs was all the times when she was like, "But of course I needed to be respectful to FW and SD, because they were my parents! Also let me tell you about another horrible thing that was done to me now."

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Okay, I think maybe we were talking about two different things? I thought we were talking about putting the blame for the escape failing on Fritz's hare-brained schemes, but now it sounds like you were talking about assigning blame for the conflict in the first place? If the latter, then yes, (most) contemporaries understood that FW was the problem here! Fritz was being normal! Even if they thought it was his duty to *obey* his father, everyone (exceptions for Stratemann and apparently Fassman) knew FW was wacko by the standards of his day. (Including in some ways that we would find *good* today.)

But if we were talking about Fritz's hare-brained schemes, well, yes, everyone was writing with the benefit of hindsight because, almost by definition, their opinions on the schemes would be recorded after the schemes came to light (barring some envoy reports beforehand, I guess). And Wilhelmine was far from the only one to go, "Okay, but that was a terrible and poorly executed idea." Catt, for one. Maybe he was reporting the words straight out of Fritz's mouth, but he certainly decided to include this assessment of the plan as hare-brained.

And Lt. Borcke, who had been close to Fritz when he was about 16 (and got enough romantic-sounding letters that biographers have speculated whether that was just 18th century flowery speak or whether it meant more), but soon after seems to have drifted away from Fritz, wrote, "I mourn the fate of the one who is its main object, but I do not pity the doers for this pernicious design, badly digested and badly executed." I'm not sure who he's pitying there (it's August 1730, so can't be Katte yet), FW or Fritz, but that's pretty victim-blamey.

I feel like there have to be other examples, too: the plan was actually unlikely to succeed! I just think people (like this poet) should stop blaming him for trying and acting like it was his fault that it ended badly and Katte died. Okay, maybe lying to Katte was not great (though I understand the desperation), but I don't see anybody complaining about that part! (Because no one but Selena has picked up on it. ;))

Also she dislikes all her brother’s boyfriends except Voltaire on general principle. :)

And Algarotti! And if there was one of them he had sex with, surely it was Algarotti. ;)

ETA: Or, wait, are we talking about whose fault it is that Katte died? Lol, I can't tell *what* we're talking about any more. :P

If that, then, yes, there are a ton of examples of contemporaries going "WTF" at FW overriding the verdict of the tribunal. But, let's not forget that the tribunal was split, and half of the officers (who voted by rank) voted for Katte to die. It was only the tiebreaker vote by one (very brave) person that meant the overall vote was for life imprisonment. I can't imagine they were the only people in all of Prussia who thought Katte deserved to die for what he did.

Actually, I forgot, Eugene said something about "I originally thought the whole Katte thing was too bad (not that FW didn't have the right to order his death, but that it's going to mean bad PR in England), but now that I've read the Puncta, and I've heard Katte was intriguing with foreign envoys, and that the votes of the court martial were split between life imprisonment and death, I'm not sure if it wasn't for the best." And now that I'm looking at Eugene's letter, god, this sentence goes on forever (please end your sentences, German speakers) and is interspersed with random phrases made up of French and Latin words, but I think he's saying FW has published the species facti (Katte's confession) and demonstrated that the death sentence wasn't an unjust and overhasty decision, but a well-thought out judgment, and I think Eugene is saying that Charles VI thinks so too.

So regardless of what we're talking about, I think contemporaries were divided!

(Okay, I like a linguistic challenge as much as the next person, but this sentence has 36 clauses (as counted by commas), and that is just *too* *many*. :P)

Daughter of ETA: And the reason looking at the Puncta changed Eugene's mind was that Katte tells Fritz not to listen to flatterers, and Eugene goes, "...You can tell that means he was doing some flattering and Fritz was listening to it." So, blaming both victims there.

Son of ETA: Charles VI is MT's dad,

cahn; do I need to keep making that connection, or are we good? I'm sorry he never thought he was a penguin so that we could give him a snappy and memorable nickname, but it's probably for the best for him. :P

Edited Date: 2022-11-19 04:21 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

Cahn will have to clear up which blaming she was talking about. The poem, I thought, was saying that Katte was fabulous for not blaming Fritz for his death, even though he could have due to the less than bright escape scheme.

But the whole branching out to who blamed whom among contemporaries reminded me we acthally have a (Melchior) Guy Dickens report to tell us that the people blaming Fritz for Katte included….drumroll… FW: To quote from my origional write-up:

“ The December 9th report includes the Queen's chaplain brings news to Dickens from SD, containing these gems, featuring FW foiled by theologians and being fan of Katte, I kid you not: The love and friendship which the Prince and his sister have felt from earliest youth for each other makes them both equally hateful to the King. Just a few days ago, the King consulted eight theologians (four Lutherans and four Calvinists) as to whether a father didn't have the right to marry his daughter to whomever he pleases? Only one, the preacher of the garnison church, was of this opinion. All others declared strictly against it. The King now shows much sympathy and compassion for Katte's death. He says: He was a promising young man whose death must have been painful for his entire family. These conversations, he ends every time by asking everyone present whether not the Prince, as the cause of Katte's death, has very much to answer for. “

Which takes the cake, so to speak. On a more understandable note, we weren’t sure for a while whether Hans Heinrich’s statement in a letter that he’s struggling to forgive was referring to FW or Fritz, though eventually decided me most likely meant FW, not least because of some new info like the rumors Stratemann heard about Hans Heinrich offering his resignation etc.

To perform a complete mood swing and go for something lighter hearted when it comes to Fritz and trip-in-disguise-planning, a decade after the ill fated escape attempt, there’s of course the aborted Straßburg trip, which is very entertaining but none of the participants cover themselves in organzational glory. (Manteuffel does, for despite being banished still having at least one spy directly near Fritz and a super effective and fast courier service.) So we might agree on Fritz, even when he’s not being an 18 years old fleeing from a life long abusive situation, being not the best secret travel planner (and executer). His strategic abilities were in other eras.

Edited Date: 2022-11-20 06:06 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yeah, I was thinking of reminding everyone of that FW blaming Katte quote, but in a slightly different context: Remember that part of the reason so many people thought Katte didn't deserve to die was that he repented. That includes some of the members on the tribunal who voted for life imprisonment, and it of course includes FW.

So even when it comes to the people who blame FW for overriding the sentence, many of them are still implicitly blaming Fritz for being the root cause of the problem here.

On a more understandable note, we weren’t sure for a while whether Hans Heinrich’s statement in a letter that he’s struggling to forgive was referring to FW or Fritz, though eventually decided me most likely meant FW, not least because of some new info like the rumors Stratemann heard about Hans Heinrich offering his resignation etc.

Yep, agreed, I didn't include that one because we eventually decided on FW. Though I would be kind of surprised if he din't *also* consider Fritz the root of all evil, if not the one who overrode the sentence. But we have no direct evidence for that.

So we might agree on Fritz, even when he’s not being an 18 years old fleeing from a life long abusive situation, being not the best secret travel planner (and executer). His strategic abilities were in other eras.

This is SO TRUE. I believe he was outed in the Netherlands too, although less dramatically.

From:

cahn

The poem, I thought, was saying that Katte was fabulous for not blaming Fritz for his death, even though he could have due to the less than bright escape scheme.

Yes, exactly. It was specifically the question, "whom should Katte blame for his death," that I thought the poem was speaking about. And my point of view is that everyone should BLAME FW, because IT IS HIS FAULT. Not only because of his abuse of Fritz which led to the whole chain of events, but also because... he condemned Katte to death! Which he totally didn't have to do! (And at the same time, as you've said, I would not blame him for having some residual resentment/blame in regard to Fritz, because the escape scheme was very instrumental in his death, but all the evidence that we have doesn't point to conscious blame, at least, and a lot of "no, really, I don't blame you!")

On a more understandable note, we weren’t sure for a while whether Hans Heinrich’s statement in a letter that he’s struggling to forgive was referring to FW or Fritz, though eventually decided me most likely meant FW, not least because of some new info like the rumors Stratemann heard about Hans Heinrich offering his resignation etc.

I was thinking about this -- that Hans Heinrich blamed FW for Katte's death (which we think is true), and that pastor guy all but said that too.

The King now shows much sympathy and compassion for Katte's death. He says: He was a promising young man whose death must have been painful for his entire family. These conversations, he ends every time by asking everyone present whether not the Prince, as the cause of Katte's death, has very much to answer for. “

BUT ALSO. FW. OMG.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Incidentally, speaking of what people thought about Katte's impending fate without the benefit of hindsight, I'm flipping through the Guy-Dickens reports looking for something, and on September 25, he writes, "It is the common opinion that Katte will lose his head, because the King, due to a new discovery, is doubly furious at him."

That turns out to be the chest containing Fritz's letters that Katte had sent to the Queen, who burned them. "Every day," adds Guy-Dickens, "things happen here that are unbelievable even to us (who are here on the spot), and I must fear that at such a distance they will be even more incomprehensible to your lordship."

Trufax!

From:

cahn

"Every day," adds Guy-Dickens, "things happen here that are unbelievable even to us (who are here on the spot), and I must fear that at such a distance they will be even more incomprehensible to your lordship."

...Yeah.